I am working on a concept related to the formation of coral reefs and I need to demonstrate the concept in the form of a visual model that changes over time. I am fairly new to this area of computer generated modeling and coding, but I'm ready to learn if you can help me find a suitable and easy to use software for this purpose. Your help will be much appreciated.
The formation and growth of coral reefs is extremely difficult to simulate due to the complicated interactions between chemical reactions and the fluid flow in the porous media. However, there are some idealized models that can be used to create a series of images describing changes in a coral reef. The examples of such models are presented in the paper attached to my comment. In all cases we have to solve the nonlinear partial differential equations.
One of the possible methods for solving these equations is the use of MATLAB. I would be delighted to assist you in determining the numerical model for your problem, if you can provide more details about the processes you want to include in the simulation.
Thank you @Janusz Pudykiewicz for your response. I will work with MATLAB and if I have any problems at all with the software or the coding, I will surely come back to you.
There is always R. It is for free and there is a very large and expanding R-users community, as well as endless manuals and resources online. There are several manuals on analysis of time series and spatial analysis with R. The learning curve is steep but I'd check it out if I was you.
Good luck!
Hello Dominique Frances Hoover
After answering your question, I prepared a MATLAB prototype program to produce the sequence of images describing a coral reef according to the reaction-diffusion model. I have to test the solver with different parameters to be sure that the results are correct. The program works in two-dimensional as well as in three-dimensional geometry and is fully vectorized. I will be happy to share the code once the tests are completed.
Regarding the use of other systems, I agree that the R software is also suitable. I can add a suggestion to use Wolfram Research's Mathematica for more theoretical studies.
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